Michael O'Rourke: Learning facts in school would've proved useful

:
October 19, 2011
: Updated: October 19, 2011 6:39pm

If I had a nickel for every time those words left my mouth during my middle and high school years, I could have put myself through college. If I had a nickel for every time I thought it, I could have gone to an Ivy League school. Though I am slightly embarrassed to admit that sentiment now, it really was my teenage mantra.

For the most part, I was right. Having never been a contestant on Jeopardy!, much of the information I was supposed to learn in grades six through 12 never came up all that much. In fact, it wasn't until my own children entered the education system that I suddenly felt remiss about my lack of fact retention.

Through my daughters (I have two in college and one in middle school), I have discovered a new passion for information. The phrase, "Why is youth wasted on the young?" could very well be tweaked to, "Why is education wasted on the young?"

I know, I know, education isn't exactly wasted on the young. It's just that it is more appreciated when you get older. Relearning everything as I help my middle school daughter with her homework is more appreciated this time around.

Let's face it, when you are 11 years old, it is impossible to grasp Mesopotamia and the Early Bronze Age. As a middle-age man, I find it fascinating. To help my daughter study for her weekly quiz I am reading her assigned chapter so I can quiz her and help her with her vocabulary. I swear, it is like I am reading all this stuff for the first time.

"I don't remember any of this," I confided in my wife after our middle school daughter had crashed for the night. "Do you remember learning about Sumer, the Stele of Vultures and the Third Dynasty of Ur?"

My wife didn't remember any of it either. She was just happy that she remembered how to convert fractions into decimals. In our house, homework assistance gets divided. She takes math and science; I take English and geography. What did parents do before Wikipedia?

As a grown man doing middle-school work, I must admit I am pretty good at it. I may not know all (or any) of the answers, but I know how to look them up. I am also interested. I am doing my best to work these newfound nuggets of education into my daily conversation, although when I recently said to a know-it-all co-worker, "Who died and made you Nabu, son of Marduk?" it was met with a blank stare.

Perhaps another reason for having children is to afford you the opportunity to go back and learn all the things you were supposed to learn the first time around.

If I could hop in a time machine and go back to talk to my teenage self, I would respond to, "Oh, yeah, like I am ever going to need to know that!" with this: "You need to know it so your children won't think you are an idiot."

Michael O'Rourke taps into his inner Nabu on Thursdays and Saturdays in S.A. Life. Email: Ourhackmoliere@yahoo .com